For most of this season, the Dallas Stars seemed like they were dreaming big merely because they were aiming for a playoff spot. After Tuesday, you’d be foolish to dismiss the team’s chances of taking the third seed.

That wasn’t the only plus for the scrappy team, though, as their closest competition lost to lowly teams. The San Jose Sharks salvaged a charity point from the Edmonton Oilers (3-2 in a shootout), while the Phoenix Coyotes managed to flub another lay-up against Columbus. (The Blue Jackets swatted them away 3-2.)

Stars make a statement

The Stars could have receded in a Northwest trio of road games; instead, they went 3-0 even with Richard Bachman starting against Vancouver. The backup had an excuse to be rusty after playing in just his third game since Feb. 2, but Zack Kassian failed to expose that 24 seconds into the game on a penalty shot.

Dallas is combining fortuitous bounces with underrated talent to defy expectations.Mike Ribeiro doesn’t exactly have a sterling retribution in many circles, but it’s pretty tough to argue with his three-point output tonight.

The Stars’ 7-0-1 streak is a startling counterpoint to the claims that they needed to fully embrace “seller” status at the trade deadline.

Bigger picture

Even with all those good feelings flowing, the cushion isn’t exactly huge. The foreboding Los Angeles Kings kept it from being a perfect evening with a decisive win of their own. The Kings gutted out a 5-4 victory against the Predators in Nashville.

With that in mind, let’s piece together the Pacific puzzle (current West position in parenthesis):

Yup, that’s not a large margin of error. Say what you will about the lack of a “truly elite” Pacific team, the division still managed to produce four borderline playoff teams. (Oh yeah, and one scary spoiler team in the Anaheim Ducks.)

New York Islanders forward Josh Ho-Sang provided an interesting take to Newsday’s Arthur Staple, and also reminded observes that, as an international sport, the NHL features some players who might not feel as invested in (or at least as informed about) these debates.

“I think what the NFL players are doing is amazing. It’s good that they’re all sticking together,” Ho-Sang said on Monday. “I mean, I’m Canadian, so I don’t have too much input on the matter itself. It will affect me living in the States, but the biggest thing is it’s unfortunate that the message may have gotten lost a little. Now it’s becoming a battle between the NFL and the president and originally [the protests] started because of police brutality and the mistreatment of different races.”

“Protecting the First Amendment is a huge thing,” Okposo said. “I’m a proud American, and I’m proud to be from the United States. Myself personally, I wouldn’t kneel for an anthem, but I respect those that do.”

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This isn’t the first time we’ve seen the current political climate affect NHL players or people they know.

Players in plenty of sports are navigating tough questions this week. It’s important to remember that athletes can find themselves in tough spots when addressing topics that can be polarizing and/or complex.

Can't imagine being 20 years old, talking to a pack of reporters about controversial protests, knowing that any misstep releases the hounds.

With the regular season about to kick into gear on Oct. 4, it’s certain that there will be more eyes on anthems than ever before. The insights in this post should be useful, whether NHL players kneel, sit, speak, or decide to stick to hockey.

The key: after only being able to study brains of deceased athletes, there’s a chance that living athletes with CTE might eventually be identified.

On face value, that’s great news for player health. Hockey, like other contact sports such as football, is no stranger to careers and lives being derailed by brain injuries.

Of course, the NHL and NHLPA would need to cooperate to make the most of potential progress. If you’ve watched hockey long enough, particularly postseason hockey, you know that certain protocols can stand as great concepts met with hesitant execution.

Westhead expounds on such thoughts, and some of his findings aren’t very pretty.

Players might be hesitant to take such tests if it means that they’ll miss playing time (or even see their careers end). It brings back memories of Peyton Manning willfully sandbagging his baseline concussion test. For better or worse, these guys want to play.

NHL player agent: “If I asked 30 of my players if they would take a test to tell them if they have CTE, I think zero would be interested."

Of course, it’s crucial to realize that potential breakthroughs from this study could take quite some time to trickle into functional practices, even if leagues and players end up being more willing to comply than expected.

Overall, this is promising news. Hopefully such changes could help athletes during their careers and into retirement.

Sprong, 20, was the 46th pick of the 2015 NHL Draft. He’s been generating solid numbers at the OHL, so it will be interesting to see how he converts that to AHL work. Sprong played 18 regular-season games for the Penguins back in 2015-16, notching two goals.

There are some bullet points that can sell Nolan, but the 28-year-old’s production was quite limited at the NHL level. Nolan’s never scored 10 goals in a single season; in fact, he’s only reached 10 points once in his career (six goals and four assists in 64 regular-season contests back in 2013-14).

Overall, it wouldn’t be surprising if a team targeted Nolan as a depth guy, even if his ceiling is limited.

While the Penguins’ entries seem notable for sheer volume as much as anything else, Frank Corrado is another name that stands out.

Corrado was often the catalyst for debates about his playing time (or lack thereof) with the Toronto Maple Leafs, but it doesn’t seem like the defenseman is having much success catching on with the Penguins, either.

Zatkoff, meanwhile, fits in with quite a few other names on this list: possibly prominent in the AHL, only likely to get the occasional cup of coffee in the NHL, at this point.